Page 27 of Demons in My Bed
Groupsexandmurder.
Wouldn’t be too unlike any other weekend, except for the fact that I was staring into the face of a fucker who wasn’t long for this world, and that was because he was a fucking asshole rat.
“I swear to FUCK I didn’t do shit!” Frank screamed, his face a sweaty mess.
Ash picked up a pair of bolt cutters. “Yeah, see, we know you did, Frank.”
“And not only do we know for sure it was you… but you touched my Bun-Bun tonight. For that alone, I’m gonna have to take those hands, Frank,” Talon explained with a sigh.
“What’s a Bun-Bun?! I didn’t mean to touch something that was yours, Tal!”
I scooped up the blowtorch and pressed the button. “But you did, Frank. That girl earlier? With the bunny ears? The one who clearly said ‘don’t touch me?’” My eyes rolled when his face paled. He remembered. “Now, since we know you’re a fucking snitch, there’s a little issue that needs to be taken care of first. You took an oath when you joined this gang, this family. What was the oath, Frank?”
“P–please,” he begged, shaking his head back and forth as I approached.
“That’s not how the oath starts,” Rhodes barked, making Frank jerk against his restraints. We’d tied his ass to a chair that was bolted to the floor. Usually, it was the hot seat reserved for our enemies, though I suppose Frank was that now.
With the fallen, I rise
With the broken, I cry
With the lost, I find my own
With the outcasts, I am home
With the forgotten, I remember
With the chaos, I am centered
With the wrong, I find the right
With The Exiled, I will fight
“Damn, that’s like music to my ears every time I hear the words.” Ash grinned and tilted his head back, taking a moment for himself. It was still hard some days to comprehend everything we’d accomplished.
“When you joined, you made a promise. A vow. One to protect the gang with everything you had. Do you think you kept your word?” Talon asked, and Frank sputtered. He knew he was fucked.
“It’s on the base of his neck. Get rid of the shirt,” I ordered, and my heart began to pound in anticipation of what I was about to do. Ash and Talon cut away his shirt, my brother throwing in a nice slap across Frank’s face for the hell of it.
“No! You don’t understand—I didn’t have a choice!”
“Everyone has a choice, Frank. When you joined up, when we fucking welcomed you, I put art on your skin. A symbol of your dedication and loyalty to this family. Even though you won’t be walking out of here tonight, you don’t deserve to go into whatever pitiful afterlife awaits you with our mark on your gods damned flesh!”
The blowtorch lit up, the flames so hot they turned blue. Nothing pissed me off quite like my artwork being destroyed. Even though it wasn’t a particularly large or intricate tattoo, I still treasured it. But it was my hand that had given it to him, so it would be my hand that erased it.
Frank screamed like the little bitch he was as his skin bubbled and the tattoo was effectively burned away. The screaming suddenly cut off, and I knew he’d passed out. Letting the flame die, I stepped back.
About six months ago, we’d had a deal go south in a bad fucking way. Lil’ Petey, one of our best street runners, ended up dead. Rhodes had already been suspicious before that since he’d been noticing some discrepancies in the amount of product we were importing. Then after we lost Pete, more and more of our plans began to get fucked up.
There was just one thing that I didn’t understand. All of the shipments that had been short were related to a secret project we were working on. Only the five of us knew what we were creating. Well, and a scientist. But it seemed that the people Frank had been working with were interested in far more than just drugs, cars, or money. They’d had months to make a move on those supplies, and yet the only things taken were rare powders, minerals, and other ingredients.
Shit didn’t add up—especially because a lot of the items in question were from Besmet, and most people here wouldn’t know what the hell to do with them.
My focus came back to the here and now when Rhodes threw a bucket of ice-cold water over Frank.
“FUCK YOU!” Frank shouted, and I glanced over at Tal. Now that he’d realized there was no way out of this, Franky boy’s true colors were about to bleed out faster than blood from a severed artery.
“Now, now, there’s no sense in that. You can start talking, and this might be a little less painful for you…” Ash trailed off, spinning the bolt cutters. “Or you can continue like this, and I’ll use these to cut off every toe, every finger, and your nipples. Your call.”
